Simon: G’day guys, and welcome to another episode of The Mindful Men Podcast. I’m your host, Simon Rinne, and today I’m getting mindful about connection and specifically about how compliments can turn our days around, but improve the connections in our life as well. Now this episode came about after I saw a social media post from Vinh Giang on TikTok.

Receive a compliment as a gift

Simon: And for anyone who hasn’t seen Vinh’s work, I really do recommend it cause he’s amazing at showing us how we can improve our communication and improve the way we story- tell, and connect with other people. And I particularly love this post that Vinh did around accepting compliments in our lives. This is not something that is really easy for Australians because we often deflect when we receive a compliment.

We might push it away or deflect because it becomes awkward when someone’s trying to give us some positive feedback, we might blush and get all a bit weird. and I think that’s quite normal for a lot of us. But what Vinh was saying is if we can accept it, when somebody gives us a compliment, what we are doing is accepting a gift from them.

Because what we often do is the opposite, is we receive the feedback or the compliment and we throw the gift away. And by accepting gifts into our life, via compliments from other people, this improves the way that we connect with other people. But also, that improves the way we feel about ourselves and also the way that they feel about themselves too, giving the compliment.

Strengthening connections with a text

Simon: And I was reflecting on this post and it got me thinking of the International Mental Health conference that I attended on the Gold Coast back in June, where I was sitting in one of the last keynote speeches of the event. It was a three-day event, and Gus Worland from Gotcha4Life came onto the stage.

This was an amazing next 45 to 60 minutes of my life because for anyone who doesn’t know, what Gus does is he’s a media personality, but he also is a mental health fitness advocate, basically. And this all came about after the death of a friend of his to suicide and got him thinking about the connections in his life and how he can improve those.

But also, Advocate for greater awareness of suicide and mental health, and try to change discourse from a mental health dialogue to a mental fitness one, so that it’s more inclusive, particularly for guys who struggled to engage with their mental health. And during Gus’s speech, he was asking us to reflect on the important people in our lives and list them down on a piece of paper.

List about 10 people that are really important to us. Next to that, be really honest and, rate those connections from zero to 10 out of 10. And we spent the next five minutes in silences about two or 300 people in the audience and writing down our list and rating those people as well. And I remember looking down at my list and the list, I’m going to be honest, this wasn’t great.

In fact, I struggled with 10 really close connections to me. And then when I was rating them, I was probably in that five to six out of 10 space, and there’s a couple reasons for that. One, I probably am a harsh marker for myself. And the second being, I was going through a bit of a mental health trough at that particular time.

In fact, burnout was very close and I was feeling a little bit depressed as well. And so that’s probably reflective of the ratings that I was giving. And from there, Gus was saying that, with these ratings, if they’re low, that that just shows us that we need to connect more and connect more meaningfully as well.

And so, he asked us to grab our phones. You know, our phones are basically are an extension of our body every single day. And he said, grab your phone. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to send two text messages. Easy as, right? And so, two to 300 of us grab out, our phones and open up our text messages and he said, I want you to send the first one to someone who’s on that list.

And I want you to write, I love you. I miss you. See you soon. Kiss, hug, kiss, hug, and then send it. And so immediately I thought, yep, I can do that one. That one’s easy. I’m going to send it to my wife. Then he waited a few minutes and he said, put your phone on loudspeaker so that everyone can hear all the, the pinging and pinging and pinging of messages as they come through.

Then he went around the room and, for people that wanted to share what that response was. They read them out loud on the microphones, and I remember thinking, oh, I hope my wife, sends something back really sweet and nothing came through on my phone. I’m like, okay, maybe I need to improve this connection.But then the other side of my brain also noted that, you know, while I was at the conference, she was, hanging out with the kids on the Gold Coast, so they were pretty busy as well. So, I kind of cut her some slack there too. And then he said, after that particular exercise said, I want you to send another message.

And this time I want you to pick someone that you haven’t spoken to for a little while. Maybe it’s been a month or a couple months. But they’re on your list and you feel like you’re not showing up for them at the moment. And he wanted us to write this next text, and it started off like this. I love you. I love you because, and I thought, oh gee, who am I going to send this text message to?

And then a common face popped into my brain. And that’s my best mate Dave. And Dave was, the best man at my wedding, and he’s one of those guys that, you know, we can go long time without speaking to each other or sending a text or even being in the same, state as each other.But then when we do get back together, it’s like you just pick up where you left off. Like there was no time in between. So, I really value this in Dave because it just makes things so much easier. We’re not having to reconnect and recreate the relationship. It just flows every time we see each other.

So, I thought, yep. Dave would be the perfect example here. And in my gut though, I was saying, I don’t really ever say that I love him to him. And that was a little bit awkward, but I thought, no, I’m going to do this. And so, I wrote what Gus asked us to write. And I wrote, I love you. I love you because, and then the rest of my sentence was, because you’re an amazing bloke, dad and mate. I thought, okay, yep, I can do that. And I clicked send. Meanwhile, the phones are still pinging from other people that are getting their text messages back from the first text message, and I’m looking down at my phone and my wife still hasn’t responded to my I love you. I miss you. See you soon. And I’m like, what’s going on with the kids? And I started thinking that they’re having a meltdown and she’s trying to deal with that all by herself. And then I got, a quick text message back from Dave and I’m like, whoa. That was quick. And before I had a chance to read it, Gus was walking around and he said, would anybody like to share what’s coming through on their second text message?

And I put my hand up, and I thought, yeah, I’ll give this a go. And I hadn’t read what Dave did write back. And I read this out in front of 200 to 300 people And so I’m going to read it to you now.

He said, thank you mate. Love you too for your loyalty easygoingness, willingness to have a crack at anything in life. You’re a bit of an idol of mine, unless you’ve just had too many Friday lunchtime beers, in which case get back to work. And I remember reading this text message and I’m like, okay, usually, our text message is a lot of banter and for him to come straight back and say that he loves me too. But then, I broke down almost, in the conference where he says that you’re a bit of an idol of mine. And I thought, wow, like that’s something that’s next level, for our relationship. We don’t really talk like that with each other.

And for him to just come back straight off the bat and say this to me, I started to tear up in front of two to 300 people and it just had all these positive emotions going through my body, and I just felt overwhelmed. I was like, yes, I do have people out there that love me, and I think this was a perfect moment.

Reflecting on it, and particularly on Vinh’s TikTok, is to give the feedback to Dave of why I thought he was an amazing person and why I loved him, but then to also accept that gift back from him in terms of how he saw me was just a fantastic thing, to have happened in that day. And what that did was it put a lot of things in context for me, and particularly how important connections are in our life and how that, when we received this type of positive feedback or compliment, and we don’t push it away like what Vinh’s saying.

It can feel so good. It can turn our days around because I was pretty depressed at that stage. I was burnt out, I was stressed the max and this just put a lot more things into perspective and then about five minutes later my wife finally texts back with, a love heart on her text message. So, I’m like, okay, good.

I’ve got two positive feedback responses from my text messages. And so, there was so much power in this particular situation from these text messages that I’m actually going to ask you out there. All you listeners out there, people tuning in on Spotify or even on YouTube or TikTok, is to send these same two messages.

My challenge to you

Simon: So, I want you to grab your phone and find someone in there, that you do love. And maybe you haven’t told them lately. Maybe it’s your partner, maybe it’s your kids, maybe it’s a mate. And just say, look, I love you. I miss you. See you soon. And the reason we’re saying this, and I want you to follow through with it, if it’s someone that you are going to see soon, and the reason this was so important, and Gus highlighted this as well, is that on the other end, we don’t know how that other person’s going. We don’t know if they’re really struggling, and Gus talks a lot about suicide awareness. And in Australia we have nine deaths by suicide every day.

So, by sending a simple text message such as, I love you, I miss you, see you soon. This could be the reason why one of these people decide to stick around for another day or longer. So, I want you to do that. I’m going to pause for a moment. Send that text message. Hopefully, let’s see what comes back.

And as you’re doing this, take note that if you’re like my wife, you might not get, an instant text message back, but that’s okay. It will come. The second text I want you to now write is the same one that I wrote to my mate. It’s, I love you and I love you because, and then fill in the blanks. Tell them why you do love them.

Is it because they’re an amazing bloke or an amazing dad or amazing mate, or a great colleague or a great player on your sports team or a great band member, or because they just make you laugh or smile, or feel wanted, or feel good? It doesn’t have to be rocket science; it just has to be simple, basic stuff.

Now, I know some people out there might say, Simon, I don’t have one of these people, and that’s okay. We can turn that around as well. We can create connections both with ourself and then other people. So, if you don’t have that person in your phone or you’re struggling to really find someone in that phone, Maybe just go to the bathroom mirror and tell yourself, I love you. I love you, because maybe it’s, I love you because you got out of bed that day, or you had a shower for the first time this week. Or maybe it’s because you didn’t drink last night, or maybe you didn’t take drugs. Or maybe it’s I love you because today’s the day when you’re going to go to the GP for the first time and start a conversation around mental health. Maybe it’s, I love you because despite all the darkness that has happened in the past today, you’re seeing life with a brighter lens. Or maybe today’s the first day you’re going to go for a walk this week, or you’ve signed up for the gym, or maybe you’ve got a new coffee machine and you’re having that first cup of coffee from, that machine.

We don’t need these hugely profound things or reasons to love ourselves. It can be very small and it’s important to love ourselves first so that we can love other people. And this, I’ve started to learn about myself as I’ve got older. Particularly in terms of my mental health journey. The more I accept it as part of my life and the more I know that I can get through dark days.

The better I feel about it and the more open I am about it, the better I feel about it. because for so long I lived with a mental health mask on. I lived this double life on the outside. It looked all squeaky clean on the inside it was a terrible mess. But by taking off that mask, I’m showing myself that I can love my myself with all my flaws and everything.

And you can too.

My gratitude and appreciation

Simon: Now, before I leave today, I wanted to show some gratitude and appreciation, and compliment all my supporters out there, whether you’re on Facebook or Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, all the podcast platforms. Whether you’re a client that comes and sees me, or maybe you are one of my N D I S support coordinators who sends me referrals.

I want to thank you all for helping me grow Mindful Men. I really appreciate every single one of you and I read every single comment and I try to respond to them all. I respond to all my dms, I’m constantly thinking about how I can improve the podcast and the social media post so that you get the content that you want.

So, I’m going to ask you a favour. I’m going to ask you to help me out a little bit. I’d love for you to all if you’re, on Spotify or on Apple Podcast, is to give the show a five-star rating. I know you’re out there and I know you’re listening, and I know there’s more of you than there are the ratings, so please the more ratings we get, the more ears and eyes and hearts we can get into because the show climbs up the ladder, and after that, I want you to jump over to YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel. It’s free. It doesn’t cost you a cent. My goal there is to reach a thousand subscribers. We’re currently at about 300, which is just amazing.

I never thought 300 people would subscribe to my YouTube channel, and I’ve been doing the YouTube channel for probably the longest out of all my social media platforms, and it’s been a slow thing, but we’re slowly seeing the curve start to go up in terms of subscribers. So, I love more people to subscribe so that they can hear this kind of cool content.

If you’re around my social medias and you’ll want to see specific type of content, please send me a dm. Happy to hear who you might want to see on the podcast as well, or what kind of content you want to see on the podcast too. And I want you to do this because I want the community to share what, they need and want.

And I want this to be community led. Mindful Men is not just about me, it’s about men across the globe. All working to live a more authentic and mindful life and connection where even if it’s in person or through dms or email is really important. And by doing so, by connecting with me through the dms, and through likes and shares and ratings and subscribers, we’re helping to grow the groundswell around mindful men so that it can be this amazing thing for men across the globe. It’s easy to find. It’s got great content and great connections with people everywhere, so if you can do that for me, that’d be amazing. I’d love it. But if you don’t do it, that’s okay too.

I just want you to know out there that I do really do love that you’re a part of this community and I love what I do, and I’m going to keep doing it. For you, for the next person that comes along and the next person after that. So, in closing, I want you to think about the connections in your life. Can you give a compliment to someone or can you give a compliment to yourself today and think about not deflecting that compliment away.

If someone does give you one, accept it as a gift, like Vinh says, doing so we start to feel better about ourselves as an individual, but also as a community. Because as we spread the love, we spread joy, we spread happiness. We start to change the internal discourses that are going around so much at the moment that are all so negative.

We just have to look at the news, of the war, of finances, of housing crisis, of accommodation issues of jobs being lost, of covid that’s still ramping around the world to get brought down and feel bogged down and, feel down. But a simple thing as a compliment, accepting it and giving it can improve connection and improve our wellbeing.

So do it today, please.

Well, thanks for joining me. My name’s Simon Rinne, and until next time, stay mindful.